Three similar questions
How to practice basketball at home? And How do I get better at basketball at home? Or when I’m alone?
Although basketball will forever be known as a team sport, you shall realize the importance of practicing basketball alone at some point in time. Because right now, group or team practice may not be doing enough to sharpen your skills as previously you thought it would do.
You will find some individuals who learn best if they are allowed to practice basketball alone. But how to practice basketball alone? I definitely will come back to answer this question later.
Nevertheless, let me tell you one thing first, this is by no means a wrong decision to practice yourself. As an athlete, you need to motivate yourself to reach your goals. Learning self motivation is equally important as other court skills.
So, you can help yourself to climb up the ladder without being dependent on others. You shall get the chance to work on your weakness, rectify mistakes, and finally can concentrate on enhancing your skills. You can even experiment with a few new basketball tricks, techniques, moves that you can call your own.
Yeah, this is true that while playing alone you won’t have the same kind of fun and enjoyment, compared to playing with teammates or friends. Yet doing practice alone is useful.
May be the court is not always free or available for you, but playing alone is possible. There are a handful number of skills available which you can master by playing alone. Passing, shooting, dribbling, vertical dribble on the wall with fingertips, controlled dribbling are some of them.
The primary objective is to push yourself to the limit to get the most out of your workout session and increase your speed and agility than ever before.
Table of Contents
12 Steps For playing basketball alone
Let me give you some instructions that may come in handy when you practice basketball alone.
1. Feel the need
As a basketball athlete, you must recognize that you should have a practice session on your own. If you are a varsity player, you also need to spend some time in your reading room. So your grades are taken care of. As a result, often, you may not get the chance to practice.
And if you are a pro, there is always a busy schedule prior to the matches and after that. Even you may require to travel more than doing practice. This is so common. With all those busy schedules in between, you must think of how you can raise the bar by trumping the old you.
If you want your kid to develop affection towards basketball right from a young age, you can gift him/her a toddler basketball set.
So, self study is the best study, and these individual basketball workouts will undoubtedly help you emerge as a better player.
2. Arrange a schedule
May be there are plenty of things you do everyday. Even sometimes, you forget to finish the most important ones. This can happen to anyone. So, how to get rid of this problem?
Organize a daily routine where you are gonna listed all schedules or planned activities. Now that you accept the necessity of practicing by yourself, so make room from your timetable.
It would be best if you did it for your cause, not to show others. By doing this, you won’t be feeling hesitant when or how to make time for self practice.
3. Choose a suitable place
Choose a location that has enough space for you to run around and show off some of your mastered basketball moves. Also, you can experiment with new moves.
You need to make the best use of your practice hours. So, do not just get satisfied after some dribbling and shooting. Change directions, cross over, fake, and do all sorts of things. So, to perform all these little things, you will probably need a location which is good enough spacious.
It can’t be more significant than if you find the vacant area near your living house or in your backyard. That means you will be much more comfortable because none is observing you, and you can relaxedly perform all kinds of drills.
Want to make the sport more interesting? Enjoy your moments in water with these pool basketball hoops.
4. Do not forget the Equipment
While practicing, make sure you have all accessories and equipment close to your hand grabs. To learn new things, techniques, moves do have your equipment ready.
Always remember to put on sports gear. Shirts, shorts, socks, shoes, and ankle brace are the most common of all. To reduce the injury of your leg or muscle, you must wear shoes. Shorts will help you to run more freely.
5. Warm up yourself
Always remember to do some warm-up exercises before practicing. It will help your muscle to get ready for the stretches in the practice session because sudden stretches can lead to severe injury. Blood flow and the cardiovascular system will be accustomed to all these jogging and movements.
We also recommend warm up after you’re done with your practice because your muscles need to relax a bit after heavy physical activity.
6. List the skills
When it comes to building skills, do not just practice blindly; make a list of basketball moves you want to work on. You gotta be smart and practical. Take your time and go after it.
7. Ball handling
Dribble from an as low position as you can. Change hands. Dribble the ball around your legs. Move from right to left and then left to the right hand. You can even set up lines of cones in a pattern known as “zig-zag”.
Let me help you with an example that will make you understand it better.
At the very first cone dribble, then a simple crossover dribble. At the next cone, change direction by dribbling between legs, go behind or do spin dribbling at the last one. Also, be watchful about the speed you are passing the basketball. Try to speed up each time. Handling will help you in shooting, driving, making layups, passing, and catching.
8. Shoot
You can follow the steps described below to achieve a better result. Here are some basketball shooting drills to do alone:
a. Set your feet, bend your arm and line up elbow with the basket.
b. Try to use a proper follow through so, you can get a superb visualization.
c. Take 10 shots in a row without hitting the rim by standing in front of the basket.
d. Compete with yourself everytime. Shoot without dribbling, after one dribble or even you can try a last second shot.
Shooting is something where you always do not require the hoop. You can fix a target or set up a basket just like what people used to do in the early days of inventing basketball. There is a cheap mini basketball hoop that you can purchase without spending a fortune. However, this is not recommended for adults yet perfect for a little 1-on-1 or to practice your three-pointers.
9. Passing
a. On the wall you need to keep marking of passing target by tape.
B. Try two hand passes, one hand passes, use right and left hand.
C. Adjust the distance according to your capability.
D. Work on pivoting. protecting the ball from defenders is really important too. study on that aspect of the game too.
E. Hit the target zone as many times as you can.
10. Conditioning
a. You can use various kinds of basketball related drills to improve your physical condition. For e.g to increase your upper body strength, do push ups.
B. Sprint up and down into the court to improve cardiovascular fitness.
C. Do jumping drills to jump from a standing position.
D. Stand under the basket, jump and try to touch the backboard 10 times in very quick succession.
E. Try to slide your feet quickly so you can change the directions frequently. By doing this, your defensive footwork will be improved a lot.
11. Cherish the opportunity to examine yourself
That’s a personal decision to practice alone. This is the only way to observe yourself by yourself. Try to judge yourself as an athlete from your point of view. Do everything possible you require to become a better player than now. That will give you great satisfaction at the end of the day because you’re putting in extra practice hours to reach your goal. Be your coach.
12. Find the delight in between practice
All your hard work will be valued more if you enjoy the practice sessions from the core of your heart. There is absolutely nothing more satisfying and wonderful than playing the sport you dream of playing.
Yeah, you won’t be taking your practice sessions lightly but also try to enjoy and take fun out of it. Even though you are doing all alone, do not forget to have the jubilation at times.
Spend the time to discover yourself and know about various aspects of your game where you need to grow as a basketball player to achieve your lifelong dream. Furthermore, this may prove to be a catalyst for speeding up your learning and development process of skills and a better understanding of the game.
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